Clayman:
I meant to get this thread going before the June 22 opener, but I ended up jumping on a couple boats and fishing places other than Depoe Bay that weekend. Feel free to add your own reports to this thread through the season! With a forecast of over a million hatchery-clipped coho salmon swimming off our coastline this year, the goal of this thread is to help each other out in dialing in these highly nomadic critters.
I have a great report to start things off from this morning, 7/1. Ocean conditions were just too nice to ignore, so I made a last-minute decision to do a bit of trolling today before heading to work. Left the hole around 0600 and was greeted by a very salmon-friendly ocean of 53 degree surface temps and stained brown water with some junk floating in it. Started marking bait as soon as I was west of the reef around 0615, so I dropped in a Brad's Cut Plug behind a Shortbus rotating flasher at 15 pulls and started my troll west. Although I continued marking bait as I headed west, my first bite didn't come until I hit the 120 contour. Wild coho, released. Had another takedown that didn't stick at the 130. Then when I reached the 150, I found an excellent trash line filled with bait and salmon crashing on the surface. It was the kind of scene that'll get any salmon anglers blood pumping! Two quick passes and I was done by 0720 with two hatchery coho at 5 and 7 pounds, respectively. Really nice fish for early July. So I turned around and pedaled back to port, and sailed into work before 1000 ;D.
Excellent fishing like this is a great sign for later in the season, as the Newport/Depoe area typically hits its coho fishing peak around the last two weeks of July. With depressed Chinook runs in the forecast, don't miss out on what should be a helluva season!
Spot:
Excellent report. Nothing like getting all jazzed up while at work on a Monday..... F'er!
-Mark-
Noob Noob:
Great pics! I can't wait until the bigger ones like the ones you caught start pouring into the Sound so I can have a crack at 'em! ;D
workhard:
Nice fish!
hdpwipmonkey:
Good report and nice fish Clayman! :banjo: